


Confinement

by Slytherin_Princess_Nysa



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Attempt at Humor, Bring tissues, Confessions, Earthquakes, Emotions, F/M, Feels, Friendship/Love, Gendrya - Freeform, Hurt/Comfort, POV Arya Stark, POV Gendry Waters, POV Robb Stark, Romance, yall about to be fucked up inside and im sorry in advanced
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:33:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23519257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slytherin_Princess_Nysa/pseuds/Slytherin_Princess_Nysa
Summary: When an earthquake hits, Arya and Gendry end up trapped together.While waiting for a rescue, the darkness lets them finally confront things they were too afraid to admit before.
Relationships: Arya Stark & Gendry Waters, Arya Stark/Gendry Waters
Comments: 49
Kudos: 80





	Confinement

**Author's Note:**

> Week 1 of Gendrya Month from days-of-gendrya  
> Prompt : Trapped

Arya was freezing.

Something was laying over her, hard and unyielding as it crushed the air out of her chest. Even her bones felt heavy, like they were weighing her down to the uneven floor like blocks of cement, her skin was covered in goosebumps. Arya groaned, trying to peel her eyelids open but they were glued shut, leaving her in the dark.

“Arya!” a voice called to her, someone shaking her shoulders roughly. “Come on, Arya, get up. You have to get up!”

She knew that panicked voice from somewhere, she was sure she did. Arya knew she had heard it many times before and despite the cloud hanging over her mind and barricading her thoughts, she knew it was important for her to push the worry out of the voice.

Arms moved under her, wrapping around her waist and lifting her and dragging her along the floor, away from the heavy weight. As soon as it was off her chest, Arya breathed in deeply, coughing as the air filled her lungs. It hurt to breathe, sharp pains shooting through her with every inhale of the filthy air.

She gasped and her eyes snapped open. The first thing she saw was the twisted, broken steel bars and jagged stones hanging over her. The next thing she noticed was the lack of natural light, the only light was the flashlight balanced on one of the larger stones next to her head.

“Arya?” and this time she instinctively knew the voice. Gendry was leaning against the wall next to her, looking down at her with exhaustion clear on his bloodied face.

She reached up to touch the dried blood covering the side of his face and Gendry breathed out deeply at the sound of her voice. “Gendry? Are you okay?”

“Just hit my head on the way down,” he said dismissively. “I thought you were dead. I woke up and you were half buried by rubble and I could barely get a pulse when I checked and- God, Arya, I thought you were going to die down here.”

“Still might,” Arya pushed herself to sit up, blinking back tears at the ache in her chest. She looked around the room, what was left of it anyways. Pieces of the building were balanced precariously against each other, leering over their heads and Arya took a deep breath to calm herself, ignoring the burn. ”By the looks of it, we aren’t getting out of here anytime soon.”

“Way to be positive.”

“I try. You have any idea how long we can make it down here?” she asked.

“No food or water,” he held up a finger and then a second as he counted. “One battery powered light.” Another finger. “And we don’t know how bad our injuries are.”

“So it’s going great.” Arya said dryly.

“I don’t know how much air we have left and I think the building is about to...” he continued, making a low whistle, dropping lower and lower until it died out and Arya got the image quite clearly. She paled and frantically looked around their little bubble in the wreckage, looking for a way out. “Getting a little claustrophobic, Arya?”

“Maybe I just don’t want to be trapped with you for my last few hours of life,” she tried to joke. Moving across the floor as she glanced around. Arya sat beside him and rested her head on his shoulder, trying to breathe through the pain. “Thought of that?”

Gendry snorted, shoulder brushing against hers as he got comfortable against the same wall. Or, as comfortable as one could get with rocks for company. “It crossed my mind but then I realized, who wouldn’t want to be trapped with me?”

“This might make me the worst best friend,” she said, her eyes drifting closed on their own accord. “But Gendry, you’re a chatterbox. I might die from you before anything else.”

He shoved her awake, frowning down at her in worry, “I’m entertainment at its finest.”

“When you say that it makes you sound cheap.” she grinned, readjusting herself to try and free up her lungs more. “Like a corner street worker.”

“You couldn’t afford me, darling.” Arya shivered and Gendry drew her into his side, pulling her close and letting her breathe him in. It calmed her racing mind and she relaxed, letting her shoulders drop.

She grinned, eyes closing as she threw her arm around him. “You’re free for me.”

“Says who?” he jostled her and her eyes snapped up to his.

Arya nestled herself deeper and murmured into his dirty shirt, letting her legs curl underneath her as she pushed a clumped curl behind her ear. “Says me.”

“And that makes it a fact because?” Gendry asked.

Her eyes shut, drifting into sleep. The heat in her stomach burned and she groaned at the intense pressure building. “Because I said so and you love me.”

She felt his chest vibrate with nervous laughter and she smiled lazily at the familiar sound. “This is starting to seem like a very bias conversation.”

“How many casualties?” Arya gestured vaguely to the rubble again, the teasing gone entirely and the pain in her chest constant.

“I don’t know.” he whispered.

The last thing she remembered, she and Gendry were waiting for the tube to arrive. She was texting her brother and Gendry was looking over her shoulder, his arm placed comfortably on her waist. The whistle of the train tracks had sounded and she’d looked up to smile at him, as if to say ‘I told you so’ then the ground had shook and Arya felt herself surging backwards and then there was just darkness.

“I’m sorry.” Gendry looked down at her and Arya craned her head. “You wanted to walk to lunch but I convinced you to take the tube because it was too far and we’d be late and Robb hates when I’m late to these things.” she laughed humourlessly. “And now we’re stuck down here and we are definitely late.”

“Hey,” he shook her gently. “We don’t know how hard the city was hit. For all we know we’re safer down here than anywhere else.”

The stones above them moved against each other and crumbled pieces fell from above, Arya squeezed Gendry’s waist tightly, “Yes, this looks safe.”

“Arya, I want to tell you something-” he started.

She pitched forward in deep coughs, clutching at her stomach. Gendry ran his hands over her back until she could breathe deeply again. Arya wiped at her mouth, studying the red spots staining her palm before discreetly cleaning it on her torn hoodie. “Yes?”

“Are you okay?” Arya nodded as she returned to her place at his side. “I’ve wanted to tell you something for the last- oh I don’t know, fifteen years? And no time like the present.”

“You think we’re going to die,” she said. “Or you wouldn’t be saying something now.”

“I don’t know if we’ll make it out of here…” he admitted. “But I don’t want to die without telling you this and if we get out of here then I won’t have to pretend like I don’t have feelings for you anymore.”

“You have feelings for me?” her cheek rested against his shoulder.

Arya studied his familiar face. She had known that face her entire life, she knew each dip and angle, each frown and laugh line. The little crook in his nose from when she’d broken it, the nitch in his eyebrow from a drunken piercing in university, the little scratch on his chin from the first time he tried shaving. This was the face she had seen every day since she was a little girl, the person she thought of first after her brothers.

She had known for many years that she couldn’t live without seeing his face.

Because she loves the idiot, even with dirt and dried blood on his brow.

“Yeah, I really do.” He squeezed her hand and a moment later threw his head back in laughter. “Was I that good at hiding it or are you just that oblivious?”

“I prefer calling it carefully hopeful.” Gendry snorted and she dug her elbow into his stomach. “Don’t you dare make fun now, Gendry Waters!”

He held his hands up in surrender, “I’m not making fun!” he defended.

“Then why are you laughing?” she glared.

“Because I’m just thinking about all the time we could have saved if we weren’t idiots.” he whispered into her hair and Arya swallowed back the copper taste on her tongue. “When we get out of here, do you want to go on a date with me?”

“I’d love to,” Arya tucked her hand under his and listened to the steady beat of his heart under her ear. “What would we do?”

“I would pick you up from your apartment, let Dany interrogate me while you got ready. Might’ve brought you flowers if I didn’t know you get sad when they wilt,” he said. “I’d actually try to look nice too, not just band shirts and -”

She snorted, “That’ll be new.”

“And,” he shook her lightly. “You would wear something other than the hoodies you’ve been stealing from me for a change.”

“Not a chance for that,” she smiled, closing her eyes as she let his voice wash over her. “What happens next?”

“We’d go to that little pizzaria you like, the one downtown with the butter in the crusts,” she hummed, imagining them sitting across from each other on an actual date for once, Gendry’s fingers played with the ends of her hair. “After we could get ice cream on the pier and I’d walk you home. Maybe even kiss you goodnight if you were in a good enough mood to let me.”

He laughed and Arya felt herself drifting. “I think I would, I mean you took me for pizza  _ and  _ ice cream. What kind of a girlfriend would I be if I didn’t thank you properly?”

She felt him shrug, “I think you make a fantastic girlfriend either way.”

“Tell me about another one of our future dates?” Arya asked.

”Sure,” he hurried to comply. “You know that over the top medieval festival they hold out in the Riverlands every year?”

“Mhm.”

“I always thought I’d make a good blacksmith since I like working with my hands and hitting things with a hammer seems like fun,” he joked and Arya huffed out a barely there laugh. “Dany and Arianne could help dress you up in one of those ridiculous dresses that’ll take up the entire backseat of my car. Or we can piece together some armour and you can be my fair knight, come to rescue me from the blazing heat of the forge.”

“I want to be a-” her voice sounded far away, muffled, like her head was deep underwater. Arya cleared her throat before continuing. “Knight is better. I can save you.”

“Alright,” Gendry said softly. “Knight it is. We can get Tobho to make us some blunted swords. I know he usually does more domestic stuff but he would make an exception for you, he’s always loved you. It used to-”

Gendry’s voice faded away and her breath hitched for a second and Arya wondered why suddenly nothing hurt.

* * *

Gendry had thought about telling Arya how he felt for years, since he realized it himself. But something always stopped him whether it wasn’t the right time or they were going somewhere and didn’t have time, but call it what it was- he was chickenshit. She was the most important person to him, the one who was with him always. From when he was a dirty foster child with ripped holes in his clothes to the day he was adopted by Tobho, when he got his first car, his first drink, she had even been his first kiss thanks to a game of truth or dare.

He was so afraid that if he told her he loves her, he would lose her.

“-bother me, you know? How easily people fell in love with you because it’s like breathing for you, but it’s always been hard for me. Well, it was,” he laughed. “Until I fell in love with you and realized how lucky I am that you’re so open and compassionate with everyone. And I'm so lucky, Arya, because I love you.”

Gendry held his breath, waiting for her to say something but she stayed quiet against his side, her hand held in his. He sat up slowly, watching in horror as her head lolled off his shoulder and to the side, a thin line of blood dripping from her nose, past her mouth and down her chin. Her hand limply dropped and Gendry shot up, pulling Arya into his lap.

“Arya?” his fingers ran over her face, brushing aside her hair and shaking her. “Come on, wake up, Arya. You have to wake up, you can’t be- Please don’t be.” his voice cracked and Arya remained unmoving in his arms.

Gendry pulled her into his arms, face buried in her neck and the faint scent of her conditioner drifting over his senses. He pressed his shaking hand over her heart and held his breath, listening, praying, waiting. But there was nothing, no beat, no response, just his laboured breathing picking up pace. It echoed in the little bubble and he felt the hot tears roll down his cheeks, stinging as they passed over the open cuts.

He dropped her gently to the ground, hands hovering over her chest. He pressed the heel of his palm over her heart and pressed down firmly, a hurried pace taking over. Trying to push her heart to start again.

“Not you,” he begged when his shoulders ached, looking up. Hoping that if there was a God he would listen just this once. “Please don’t take her from me.You’ve taken everything - my parents, my sisters - and you can have anything else but not her. Not Arya. Please! If you’re up there, if you care for any of us down here-” he choked. “Please don’t take her.”

Gendry had gone to church twice in his life and he’d never been religious, never found anything worth praying to in his life but he would beg any diety, any higher power, for Arya’s lungs to gasp the filthy air and open her eyes.

All he needed was for her to look at him and everything would be okay.

If she just woke up everything would be okay.

If he just kept her warm she would be okay.

He pulled her hands into his, rubbing them together to warm them. A rumbling in the hanging debris pulled his eyes away from her, dust floated down like thick waves of snowflakes and Gendry held her closer. Help would come soon and they would save her but until then he had to keep her close, had to keep her warm.

His eyes were swollen, his throat was sore and his breathing had slowed. He fell back against the rock, throwing his head back with a heart-wrenching scream.

This wasn’t right, none of this was right.

Nothing that whole day made sense.

He was supposed to tell her he had feelings for her and her brothers were supposed to threaten him goodnaturedly. They were supposed to have an actual first kiss that didn’t happen in a basement and go on cheesy dates and make fun of her brothers at family dinners. They were supposed to fight and yell and get angry with each other. They were supposed to make up and -  _ they were supposed _ to have a chance.

He just had to keep her warm.

He just had to keep her warm.

He just had  ~~ to keep ~~ her  ~~ warm . ~~

* * *

Robb stood behind the yellow tape blocking off the collapsed tube, checking his phone for the tenth time. Beside him Dany was talking to Arya’s voicemail again, asking her to call them immediately and tell them where she was. In front of him, Jon was trying to talk the police officer to let them through and Arianne was trying to calm him down.

Robb had just gotten off the phone with their parents, he hadn’t known what to tell them. Arya and Gendry hadn’t shown up to lunch on time, she’d sent one text and then the earthquake hit, none of them had heard a word from her since.

He clicked on her contact, scrolling up past his dozens of text to find the last one she’d sent him that day. It was simple, something she sent while in a hurry and she hadn’t had the chance to respond again before the quake hit.

_ running late, taking the tube _

_ gendry took forever to get ready _

_ please dont be mad, love ya _

“She’s probably at the restaurant looking for us,” Arianne tried again but her bloodshot eyes weren’t the least bit convincing. “Right?”

“She said she was taking the tube.” Robb said numbly, eyes watching the covered bodies of the dozen unfortunate people who definitely hadn’t woken up this morning expecting to spend their last moments stuck in a crowded tube tunnel. He wondered who was waiting for them behind the yellow tape. If there was anyone at all.

Dany yanked his arm and his head snapped towards her. “Robb!”

“What?”

“Jon was talking to you.” she mumbled, dropping her hand. “He said it looks like they’re bringing more people out.”

He nodded, quickly turning to watch the team moving chunks of rock and metal out of the way as a stretcher was brought out, closely followed by another. They were covered in dirt and bruises, but he knew.He’d been the first one to hold her when she was born. Somehow, even as a little baby, Arya had been the most lively and strong person Robb knew. But now she looked so fragile, weak and delicate. Like a paper bird fallen from the sky.

And it ripped his heart out of his chest because god, he knew.

He’d gotten her that jacket for Christmas and the bracelet was a gift from Jon that same year. She loved both, she barely left home without them. And Gendry wasn’t hard to recognize, they’d known each other since Arya had brought him home as a bratty kid, even with the blood coating the entire side of his face and dripping over his lifeless eyes.

A scream sounded next to him and Jon was held up entirely by Arianne as he sobbed into her shoulder. Robb surged forward, ripping through the line and trying to get through the police standing in his way.

“Sir, please, step behind the line.”

“That’s my sister!” he yelled, shooting his arm out to try and push the man away. “Get off me! That’s my sister!”

**Author's Note:**

> How're you guys feeling?


End file.
